


take a moment (and find yourself)

by DylanOhbrien



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Planet, Character Study, Coming Out, Day At The Beach, Families of Choice, Fluff, Gen, Homesickness, Lance teaches Keith how to swim, Minor Original Character(s), Pre-Slash, Surfing, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-15 22:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8075422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DylanOhbrien/pseuds/DylanOhbrien
Summary: Lance waxes the board and then he shoots off towards the water; reality and anxiety and the weight of the world are washed away by the waves.And Keith... well, Keith feels like he's finally found something that feels like home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was just sitting in my drafts since July and I figured I should finally post it. I think this focuses more on Lance than Keith in terms of a character study fic, but ya know, I am a biased little shit after all. There's something about golden-hearted cocky assholes in space that just gets to me.
> 
> I can't stop listening to Here Comes a Thought from Steven Universe, ergo the title.

As the days in space seem to blur together, Lance finds himself less and less surprised by the things that would have originally shocked him into a gaping expression, complete with comically wide eyes and furrowed brows. Not only that, but he seems to find these things perhaps less interesting, no matter how unbelievable they may seem. Nothing new leaves him with the titling thrill and excitement that he had expected space to give him. No, in new planets he only ever finds little things that remind him of home. A cat-like creature, the smell of petrichor, a foreign language that sounds almost like Spanish, but try as he might he isn't able to form coherent words from the quick mess of sounds thrown his way.

He's homesick. It's something he tends to be able to hide underneath a boisterous personality and endless teasing jabs, but sometimes it's as obvious as Pidge’s love of mechanics. Lance _misses_ the pleasures and sundries of Earth, and he'll take whatever he can get to remind him that home is still out there, that someday he will return to it.

Pieces of home come crashing into him in the meantime, reminding him of the life he lost. The cat-like creature jumps into his lap and curls comfortably to take a nap. Lance breaths in the smell of rain despite the clear alien sky, remembering the feeling of an old blanket being tossed over his shoulders and his mother's comforting arms during particularly rough thunderstorms. An alien with orange skin shoves him in front of a crowd and he does what he can to entertain them despite the language barrier. He sings a song his grandmother taught him as a child, soft and musical and in his native tongue.

Most recently, home comes in the form of a beach, the familiar role of teaching someone how to swim, and the feeling of riding a wave under a sunset while the people you've grown to think of as family watch from the shore.

They're flying through the ouroboros galaxy when Coran happily points out a nearby planet he calls Varilla, going on a tandem about the beauty and splendor and all around awe-inspiringness of the planet. He often does this when they happen to cross the paths of other planets during their journeys, occasionally very forlorn to find the planet having been overcome by the Galra in their absence.

They make it their job to free these enslaved planets and bring back harmony and peace to the races and species that inhabit them, but the scar of thousands of years of despair will always be there. Everyone is just glad to be able to give them a new chance at life after everything they've been through.

But Varilla, it seems, has so far been untouched by the evil alien race, and Coran wastes no time telling everyone all about it.

The paladins pay little mind to the endless drabble, but it's eventually Lance’s curiosity that is peaked when the Altean brightly exclaims, “They've got some of the most splendid beaches in the entire known universe, in my opinion!”

“Coran, and I mean this in the least offensive way when I say this, but you find gross green space goo to be one of the most delicious things to eat in the universe,” Pidge pipes up. “So pardon me if I don't have much faith in your claim.”

Coran frowns at her for a moment, yet never to be deterred for very long, bursts into another speech full of excitement. “Varilla beaches are unique partially because of their sand! Ground so finely it almost feels like you're laying on a cloud. Oh, and the _oceans_! Combined with the natural forming foam and high sodium concentration, you'll have no problem floating on it. It _actually_ feels like you're laying on a cloud!”

“Can we go?” Lance asks immediately, thinking about the feeling of sand underneath his feet and the sun against his skin after months of floating in deep space. He thinks about the smell of salt in the air and the surfboard he left behind on Earth and his _mother_. She adorned the beach. Everyone in his family did, actually.

“Is it even safe?” Keith asks curiously, and Lance finds it very shocking to see Keith show even an inch of interest in landing on a planet unrelated to their mission to destroy the Galra. He'd half expected the guy to immediately put his foot down and argue against whatever might come out of Lance’s mouth.

Coran’s nod fills Lance with a rush of hope and anticipation. He can already taste the salt on his tongue. “Oh, yes,” Coran assures him. “Completely safe, I assure you of that. The Varillans are a very peaceful race, and extremely welcoming to visitors. The planet is quite a hotspot for tourism, you see! I myself visited the planet a few times in my youth.”

“Must've been like a million years ago, in that case,” Pidge says with a cheeky grin on her face, laughing loudly when Coran huffs haughtily at the comment.

Normally Lance would be over those kinds of jokes, but he finds himself a little too excited to focus on anything else. But of course he does manage to find enough time for a burst of pride and affection for Pidge. It's only natural, really.

“Can we go?” Lance repeats firmly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He looks over to his best friend, who seems to have occupied himself with fiddling with a small piece of metal in the meanwhile. “Hunk, my darling, back me up on this, would you?”

Hunk glances up at the mention if his name and blinks slowly while he catches up with the conversation, eyes eventually resting on Lance. “Back you up on what, exactly?”

“Varilla,” Lance says tersely, as if that explains everything. At Hunk’s blank stare, he heaves a sigh, shoulders slumping down. “You know, a lovely little planet with what Coran promises to be amazing beaches. Ringing any bells?”

Hunk's confused squint deepens, but before Lance can explain any further, Pidge interjects. “Lance wants to visit this Varilla planet, for what I'm hoping is just a fun day at the beach and not an opportunity to find alien space girls in bikinis.”

“Ah, Pidge, you know me far too well,” Lance coos at his friend, fingers reaching out to run through their hair and ruffling it as if she were a child. She bats his hand away and let's out an indignant sound of protest.

“I say we shouldn't risk it,” Keith says, and the other shoe drops. “It's been ten thousand years, and the planet might not be so friendly anymore. Who knows why they've managed to evade the Galra for so long, or if they even really have. I think it's too dangerous.”

“You would think that, wouldn't you?” Lance sneers.

Shiro steps forward to stop what was undoubtedly about to be another fight between the two paladins, but Allura beats him to it.

“We are already in Varillan orbit. I'm sure if they posed any threat to us, they would have taken some sort of course of action by now,” she supplies helpfully before Keith has any chance to interject with an insult of his own, and oh wow, it seems like for once Lance is winning in this small democratic society the seven of them have going on.

Eat a dick, Keith Kogane.

“So it's safe to say that we can board the planet without any bad guy interference then?” Lance asks, excitement slipping through easily. He vaguely wonders what it might take to get his hands on a surfboard, or something close enough to it.

“I do believe so, yes,” Allura nods from her spot at the helm of the deck. “If you would all like, we can take a small break before we depart for the outskirts of ouroburos. There aren't that many habitable planets that far out I'm afraid, and I don't know if or when we'll get such a chance again.”

“I say we go it,” Pidge says with a small shrug of her shoulders. ”Even if we came across Galra or any other kind of alien that wants to cause harm to others, at least we’d have the chance to take them out and protect the planet.”

“Great thinking, Pidge, my child!” Coran exclaims, and then scampers off towards the door, brightly claiming, “I shall go fetch our swim equipment.” before he leaves the deck with a hiss of an electric door and a very jovial laugh.

“Shiro, what do you think?” Keith says after a pause, and Lance pouts.

Shiro this, Shiro that, Shiro blah blah blah. Keith is mega obsessed with the dude, always looking to him for any little thing, and frankly it’s starting to grate on Lance’s nerves. For reasons he refuses to acknowledge might extend beyond petty annoyance. Because they do not. At all. Lance cares little about where Keith’s affections may lie, platonic or otherwise. All he cares about is the sea and sweet alien babes and riding a wave until he crashes face first into salty waters.

“I think we deserve a break,” Shiro says, and yep, Lance has definitely won this battle. Whoa, who would have figured? Certainly not Lance.

Definitely not Keith, who looks like he maybe wants to argue some more, but eventually concedes and shifts his weight onto a single leg, clicking his tongue and rolling his eyes. The annoyance rolls off him in waves, practically palpable in the recycled air, but it’s tough cookies for him because he might be fine and dandy with being confined to the castle and not having much human contact, but Lance isn't. He _thrives_ on that kind of thing.

So Keith just has to deal.

“So we’re landing?” Lance asks, actually surprised to have managed to sway pretty much everyone so easily. They must have all been as bored and cooped up as he was to agree to an outing not relevant to their mission. Not that Lance was complaining. All that he was thinking about was surfboards and swim trunks and finding something that was as close to ice cream as he could get.

“It seems we are,” Shiro says, and the smile Lance gives him is blinding. “Try to stay out of trouble, Lance.”

“I make no promises,” Lance says very seriously before walking over to the glass to get a better look at the planet they’re about to land on.

Varilla itself―on the outside, at least―is mostly milky white all around, covering a good portion of the entire planet. Flashes of blue and green and orange do manage to peak through every few moments because of the white constantly fluctuating. Allura assures him those are sort of clouds, except not made of vaporized water as they are on Earth. She doesn’t clarify just what substance the clouds are made out of, and Lance doesn’t ask.

Lance doesn’t have much of a basis for comparison seeing as he’s never been the best at perception (see: the amount of times he's clipped a wing off the simulator ship during practice), but he definitely can tell that this planet is perhaps twice the size of Earth alone. Definitely bigger to some capacity, at least. It has a few small moons orbiting it, and Lance watches the satellites meander around the white planet at their own leisure pace.

He presses his face against the glass window of the deck, ignoring Keith’s scoff and insulting jaunt about how childish he’s being.

Look, Lance has been in space for who knows how long at this point, battling evil aliens and freeing prisoners and missing his family so much it almost feels like he’s lost a part of him. On top of all that, the only people he has to keep him company are two aliens, four (alien) mice, three humans, and Keith the Mullet Man. Who might also be an alien. Lance sometimes genuinely believe he’s not a human being. No human in their right mind has a mullet and wears fingerless gloves.

Life is depressing enough as it is because of that reason. He won’t let his momentary excitement be dimmed because Keith has a stick up his ass. No goddamn way.

Allura takes them down towards the planet’s surface, and even though the castle can combat against the planet’s gravitational pull, Lance can feel himself being caught in its orbit. As they enter the atmosphere, clouds disperse to make way for something that looks vaguely like home, with tall buildings and trees and vast waters.

Except, the trees are blue and the waters are a vibrant foamy orange and the buildings are not all rough edges and points like they are back home on Earth. It’s still an amazing planet nonetheless, and Lance watches in awe as they land not far off from a beach, in an empty clearing in the middle of blue forest. He’s pretty sure the sand is a pretty lavender color.

Lance pays no mind when Pidge starts asking about the swim wear Coran had gone off to get, or when Hunk pats his stomach and theorizes about the food this planet might have to offer. He definitely pays no mind when Shiro claps Keith on the back and tells him to lighten up, having a day off would be good for team morale.

He doesn’t. Lance just focuses on this new planet and grins so hard his cheeks hurt. Then he's off to his room to find the most appropriate beach outfit he has, and sunscreen.

This is going to be a good day, he can feel it in his bones.

* * *

Varilla is beautiful in a very picturesque sort of way, he has to admit. It seems like, for once, Coran was actually honest in his claims about the wonders of something not from Earth. Perhaps his terrible taste only extended to food and drinks, Keith wasn’t sure at this point.

After everyone had changed into the most appropriate attire on the ship―Varilla had terribly dry heat, it seemed, and it was something both Coran and Allura had not opted to mention until they landed―they all met up at the hangar bay.

Pidge was complaining before the bay door was even opened about how her and heat did not mix at all. Hunk nodded his head in silent agreement, but opted to keep his verbal complaints to himself. Shiro just smiled and patted Pidge’s shoulder, assuring her that if she got too hot she could always come back here for a cool down.

Shiro himself looks to not mind heat in the slightest, and apparently Allura and Coran’s alien bodies allow them to be able to handle both higher and lower temperatures than humans. Keith himself spent the better part of a year living in the dry heat of the desert, so he felt adequately prepared.

So did, apparently, Lance.

Keith doesn’t know how well the guy would deal with the heat. After all, he complained about a lack of skin care products the other day. He’s shining with sunblock (or, well, the alien equivalent of it) and wearing a thin t-shirt and pants, but other than that he looks content to enter the heat of Varilla.

“This beach is not far off from a Varillan town,” Coran explains hitting the button to the hanger. “So we could stop by for a tic and see some sights!”

The door falls open and the heat comes pouring in, wrapping itself around the paladins and Alteans. Pidge goans. Hunk pats her shoulder in solidarity.

Lance screams, “Last one to the ocean has a mullet!” and then shoots off out of the castle and into the lightly dense forest towards the direction of the beach. Keith, for a moment, refuses to be goaded by Lance’s jeer, but he also knows that if Lance beats him to the beach, he’ll never let anyone forget about it.

So Keith breaks into a run a second later, pointedly ignoring Shiro’s response of, “There they go again.” as he barrels towards the direction Lance had run off in.

He can see the back of Lance’s head as his figure retreats into the thick blue brush of plants and towards the direction of the ocean. Keith follows closely behind, ducking to avoid hitting a low hanging branch and nimbly stepping around the roots protruding from the ground.

The trees eventually give way to a very clear and very bright opening, and Keith passes through it and stops in his tracks. Lance is standing in the purple sand, shoes covered in the small grains, arms crossed and grinning smugly.

“Got to be faster than that, Kogane,” he says happily and then tugs his pants up over his knees, pulls his shirt off over his shoulders, and kicks off his shoes. He leaves his shoes and shirt practically at Keith’s feet and tells the boy, “Watch those, would you?” before taking off down towards the shore.

Keith grumbles slightly at the other paladin’s arrogance and then gives his full attention to the beach. It is very beautiful, he thinks to himself. The sand certainly does indeed look soft and lovely, the color of it clashing with the color of the ocean as the orange water laps at the shore. There’s multiple aliens mulling around the beach, laughing and playing what seems to be a game of volleyball. Huh, guess somethings are just universal.

The rest of the team eventually appear through the trees, and Keith glances back at them, arms crossed and squinting slightly against the brightness of the Varillan sun.

“Where’s Lance?” Shiro asks, and Keith just juts his head in the direction of the water.

Lance is running head first towards the shore, throwing himself at the foamy waters as soon as he reaches it. He belly flops into the waves and disappears underneath them for a moment before bobbing to the surface, floating with his limbs spread outward.

Shiro chuckles at his antics, while Coran claims, “Let’s go join the young paladin!” before taking off and shooting down the path towards the water, clutching his weird Altean floaty to his torso.

“I thought you didn’t need anything to float in these water?” Pidge asks, rolling up her sleeves up to her shoulders.

“You don’t,” Allura assures her. “However, Coran has always been one for theatrics and keeping up appearance. He is very meticulous about his appearance, you might have noticed.”

They had.

“Case in point: gross space drink that also doubles as hair tonic,” Hunk says, wrinkling his nose at just recalling the smell of the unpleasant liquid. Keith silently agrees with him, but smiles to himself when he remembers the way Lance almost emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor after drinking it.

“Let’s go join them,” Shiro says, and moves down the slope of the beach towards the shore. The rest of them follow along, with Keith trailing behind after picking up Lance’s shoes and t-shirt.

It isn’t that he doesn’t want to kick back and relax every once and a while, because that’s definitely the case. However, they’re currently fighting a war that is seven people and a giant space robot versus an alien army spread across the entire known universe, and well, that usually puts a damper on things. They don’t really have the time to stop and smell the roses. Or bask in the sunlight of an alien star.

He keeps his mouth shut as Shiro and Hunk set up an umbrella and a few seats in an empty space on the beach. Keith sits down on the ground, fingers digging into the sand and disappearing underneath purple softness. The grains feel light and soft, and Keith almost feels like he’s sitting on a huge pile of confectioner’s sugar.

Pidge sits herself underneath the umbrella and squints unhappily at the sun despite the shade provided. Allura takes the seat next to her and tries to strike up a conversation to pull her out of her slightly foul mood. Shiro watches the entire interaction with a small smile and leans against the edge of Allura’s chair, a book in his hands. Hunk immediately runs over to Lance and Coran, and their attempts at competing to see who could stay underneath the waves for the longest amount of time.

It’s nice, he supposes.

“Are you not going to go in the water, Keith?” Shiro asks, and Keith glances up from where he’d been staring at his feet buried into the sand. “You don’t have to worry about drowning, I think.”

Allura glances up at that and brightly assures everyone, “Drowning is almost impossible in these waters. Many people take their children to learn how to swim here because of the very low drowning possibility. This is where I learned how to swim, in fact!”

“I figured when I saw Lance flailing around like a complete idiot,” Keith says, kicking around the sand with his foot. Coran is right. It does almost feel like being on a cloud.

“Lance is actually a really good swimmer, from what Hunk was telling me,” Pidge cuts in. “Apparently before the Garrison, he used to pretty much live at the beach. I never got to see if Hunk’s claims held any merit since we’d met after classes started, and well, the Garrison is basically surrounded by desert for miles. No time to take a weekend trip to the beach.”

“Oh, that’s such a shame,” Allura says with a small frown, hand resting over her heart. “Lance must’ve really missed the ocean then.”

“Probably explains why he was so eager to come down here,” Shiro muses.

“Guess it really was to swim and not for alien beach babes,” Pidge says with a snort. ”Lance actually has interests that extend past pretty girls. How shocking.”

“I’ll have you know my interests are not just limited to pretty girls,” Lance says suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention up to him. He’s standing over them, having made his way out of the water and up to where they’re sitting without anyone noticing. His tan arms are crossed over his chest while he grins down at them wildly, and that’s when Keith notices he’s dripping wet, droplets falling from his hair and rolling down his temple. Keith suddenly finds the sand very interesting. “They extend to pretty boys, too. Anyone that's pretty, actually.”

Pidge raises a brow. “Is that so?”

Despite the good nature of the interaction, Keith can see an undercurrent of something in Lance's eyes, something that tells him perhaps this is the first time he's ever told anyone he likes pretty boys just as much as he likes pretty girls. A part of him wants to say something, butt in and tell him it's _okay,_ but it isn't his conversation and it isn't his place.

But then Lance grins, all teeth and cheeks and still slightly off kilter. ”I’m an all opportunities kind of guy.”

Pidge smiles back and stretches out a foot to kick Lance lightly. “Why am I not surprised? That explains so much, actually. You are so easy to read, Lance McClain.”

Lance squints down at her, and gets ready for some sort of retort, but then it seems like something clicks in his brain and his face flushes red. Keith is definitely sure it isn’t because of the hot sunlight. Whatever it is that Pidge seems to hold over Lance’s head, it’s enough to get him to change the subject.

However he also notices the stiffness in Lance's shoulders vanish at that. It's okay, Keith thinks.

“Oh, shut up,” Lance grumbles, kicking some sand in her direction. “I came over here to ask if anyone was up for a race.”

Someone definitely means Keith, the red paladin already knows this. He needs to put a stop to this immediately. “No.”

Lance pouts and turns his nose away from him. “Who said I was here for you, Mullet Man? I could’ve been asking our great leader Shiro here, or Allura, who I’m sure is a very graceful swimmer. Hell, I could have even been asking Pidge ‘I hate H20’ Gunderson for all you know.”

“But I know you meant me,” Keith responds before Pidge pipes up an insult of her own. “Because you keep insisting we have some rivalry, that you refuse to believe is non existent no matter what I try to tell you. So no, I’ll pass.”

“Keith can’t swim,” Shiro supplies cheerfully, and this is exactly what the red paladin had been hoping to avoid. Lance’s undoubtful teasing, the endless berating with insults and jokes because he never bothered to learn how to swim.

Keith had been training to be a pilot for years, and jumping from home to home since he could remember. He lived in the damn desert for almost an entire year while the Blue Lion goaded him into finding it for goodness sake. There was never really time to learn how to swim with his hectic schedule. So he tended to avoid deep bodies of water. No big deal.

“ _What_?”

Lance immediately bursts with disbelief, and yet, unlike Keith had assumed, he doesn’t go straight to annoying teasing. Instead, Lance gapes, mouth flapping like a fish, and then reaches down and tugs violently on Keith’s arm to pull him to his feet.

“Come on Keith my boy, I’m going to teach you how to swim,” Lance states, and oh no, he’s serious. He starts to tug Keith in the direction of the water. “You can use Coran’s floaty if you get nervous.”

“What? No way.” Keith tugs his arm back as hard as he can manage, and Lance stumbles backwards a bit, but manages to keep his hand locked around Keith’s wrist tightly. “Lance, let go. I’m not going into the water, especially not with you.”

“Come on, dude, I want to race you. I can’t do that if you can’t swim,” Lance says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“So you admit you wanted to race me?” Keith asks smugly, still tugging his arm back.

Lance rolls his eyes, but there’s no real heat behind the gesture. “Sure, Keith, I admit I wanted to race you. Now come on, we’re losing precious daylight here. I promise I can at least teach you proper form by the time the sun goes down. Trust me, I taught all my younger siblings and cousins to swim. I’m awesome like that.”

There’s another insistent tug at his arm and Keith glances back to look at Shiro, who seems to be watching the entire interaction with a thinly veiled amusement. His eyes are silently pleading, but Shiro just shakes his head and says, “Never too late to learn a new skill, right?”

Keith groans and his shoulders slump, and Lance seems to take that as a resignation to his fate, because he brightens up and starts to pull Keith down to the shore. There’s a hum of pleasant surprise when he doesn’t receive any resistance and Keith just let’s himself be tugged in that direction.

Anxiety starts to pool in his stomach as they near the shore, but he pushes it down and hardens his resolve to see this through.

Lance has no such problem and immediately plummets into the water with ease, pulling Keith along with him. The water, like Coran had promised, is orange and very foamy and feels slightly more dense than he remembers lakes from Earth being, but it’s not cold. Keith edges himself into the tepid water, and Lance seems to catch on to his trepidation because the grip on his arm loosens and his hand moves down to actually hold Keith’s loosely.

His grip is loose enough for Keith to be able to tear his hand away if he wants to, but it’s also the only thing he knows he’ll be able to hold onto if he starts to drown. So Keith just let’s Lance hold his hand and adamantly tells himself there’s no deeper meaning about it.

“Come on, if you relax you’ll definitely float,” Lance tells him, thumb rubbing against Keith’s knuckles.

“Easier said than done,” Keith says through grit teeth, but he does walk into the water until it reaches his hips anyway, trying to get comfortable with the sensation of his body trying to float up to the surface. It’s a strange feeling. The steady stream of waves doesn’t make standing any much easier, and he has to fight against the current to not lose his purchase on the seafloor and keep himself upright.

Lance grins at him and then splashes some of the water on him with his free hand. It’s salty, is the first thing that Keith registers. Really salty. Disgustingly salty.

When he unsurprisingly gags and spits to try and rid the taste from his mouth, Lance just laughs loudly, tossing his head back. “I take it you’ve never swam in the ocean before, then. I’ll admit it takes some getting used to, and this water is even more salty than I ever remember any saltwater ever being on Earth. Try to keep your mouth closed as much as you can and you should be fine.”

Keith scowls but doesn’t respond, and Lance seems to take that as his cue to back up deeper into the water, gently pulling Keith with him. The blue paladin seems to not mind in the slightest when his feet can no longer touch the ground, but Keith panics and immediately pulls back, hand slipping away from Lance’s.

“Lance, I―” Keith starts, but Lance quickly kicks his way over to him. They definitely do not talk about the way that Keith grips Lance’s outstretched arms, tugging him closer until he was flush against his torso, arms wrapped around his neck.

Or at least, they never would have. But Lance never knows when to keep his mouth shut.

“Oh, Keith, I had no idea you felt this way,” Lance teases lightly, but Keith definitely doesn’t miss the way Lance’s arms wrap arounds his back protectively. He attempts to subtly pulls him back closer to the shore without Keith noticing, but Keith picks up on the small shift despite the panic. “Come on, I gotcha. Don’t you worry, McClain let’s no student drown under his watch.”

“I’m not your student,” Keith grumbles, untangling himself from Lance when he's backed up enough for their chests to come out of the water. His feet hit the ground and a breath heaves out of his lungs in relief.

“Alright grumpy pants, whatever you say,” Lance says with a snort. “Come on, let’s work on floating.”

Lance starts to explain how Keith should relax his body and lay on his back, allowing himself to float. He stresses the importance of, as a first time swimmer, keeping as much air in his lungs, because it’s the air that makes the body naturally float.

“Although, with the amount of salt in the water you’ll float anyway,” Lance says, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s mainly about staying calm, really. If you start to flail you’ll end up going under. Not deep, but enough that you’ll most likely panic and end up exhausting yourself. But I’m right here to haul you up if you start to panic.”

“I’m not going to panic,” Keith replies haughtily.

Lance shrugs and places a hand on Keith’s shoulder, pushing him gently to his back. His other hand moves to rest palm up at the small of his back, to straighten him out. Keith feels the anxiety well up in his throat, but he lets himself be pushed down into the water despite it. He will not panic. He _won’t_.

Keith’s hands grasp at the arm that’s pushing him into the water,and he feels his feet give way and float off the ground. For a moment he starts to fidget uncomfortably, splashing water as he tries to get used to the feeling of being on his back, but Lance tells him, “Relax, I got you. Stop moving.”

It takes some effort for Keith to actually manage to stop fidgeting and try to actually relax in the water.

“Spread out your arms. Helps with floating,” Lance instructs him.

“But I―”

“I’ve _got_ you,” Lance reminds him, applies pressure on his back with his hand to remind Keith that he was indeed helping him stay above the water. “Just trust me, Keith. Spread out your arms.”

The thing is, Keith does actually trust Lance, just like he trusts Hunk and Pidge and Shiro and Allura, even Coran. He knows when it comes down to it, Lance will have his back and know when to take things seriously. So when he released his grip on Lance’s forearm and slowly spreads his limbs outward, much like he’d seen Lance do when he first dove into the water, he knew the other boy would be there for him.

After a minute of just floating there in a strange statis, Keith realizes he feels a little like he’s floating. It’s almost effortless, and actually enjoyable, unbelievably enough. The waves move him slightly, and he bobs up and down, but his face stays above the water the whole time.

“This is nice,” he admits after a moment of silence where he’s just floating there, with Lance’s feather light touch holding him up.

“Ready for me to let you go then?”

Eyes burst open and Keith moves a little too roughly against the wave for his comfort. “What? No!”

Lance’s hands press firmly against Keith’s body. “Calm down, Keith,” Lance tells him through a soft chuckle. “I won’t let go without your permission. Promise. But, I mean, it is the next natural step is learning how to swim. It’s not even that hard.”

“Easy for you to say,” Keith grumbles through a clenched jaw. He can do this, he tells himself. He can do this. “Let go.”

“You sure?” Lance asks, and Keith, for a small miniscule moment, actually manages to find him endearing. For a moment.

“Let go,” Keith repeats, and his eyes clash with Lance’s. He's reminded of the ocean, for a moment. The one back on Earth, anyway.

Lance wordlessly obliges, and Keith feels the pressure of his hands pulling away until he sees them come of of the water and hover in front of him. Keith sucks in a deep breath and closes his eyes, letting himself flow with the water. He can do this.

Keith manages almost five whole seconds of unaided floating before panic sinks in and he starts to fidget. Lance is immediately by his side, and the relief that pools in his stomach at seeing Lance and feeling his hands on his body is a little embarrassing for Keith.

“You did it,” Lance says, grinning widely. “See? Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“I only lasted a few seconds,” Keith grumbles, and tries to turn his head away. Disgusting salt water ends up in his mouth so he quickly looks back. Lance definitely notices is because he snorts, but doesn’t say anything else about it.

“A few seconds is better than no seconds,” Lance chirps. “Let’s go again.”

Lance tries to make him float by himself a few more times, making him go for longer and longer times before he went back to give Keith something to hold on to. If he’s being honest, Keith feels like he’s getting babied a little, but doesn’t say anything when Lance coos and praises him for being able not to flail like an idiot for over a minute. It’s nice and it boosts his confidence, dammit.

“Wanna work on kicking?” Lance asks. “We don’t have a board for you to hold on to, but you can just hold my shoulders.”

He pulls Keith upward to a standing position right in front of him and moves Keith’s hands to grip onto his shoulders. It’s strangely intimate, Keith thinks, and immediately looks down at the water to distract himself from it.

Lance entrusts him to kick his legs up, and how to keep his head above water, Keith listens intently, and at some point between listening and actually trying, he realizes that Lance isn’t actually a terrible teacher. He takes things slow and makes sure Keith is comfortable with what they’re doing, and is very meticulous about making sure Keith _feels_ safe.

It’s nice. Weirdly nice, in a way that makes Keith feel like he's simultaneously soaring and sinking. He ignores it in favor of kicking his legs.

* * *

Granted, teaching Keith the basics of swimming hadn’t been a part of his plan when they’d gone down to Varilla. All Lance wanted to do was swim, surf, and maybe beat Keith’s ass in a race. Still, despite that, he can’t deny that teaching Keith is… actually not that bad. It’s fun, even. Which is just plain weird in it’s own right.

They work together until Keith can successfully kick and move his arms in the correct form. The other paladin never quite works up the courage to actually try to swim off on his own, not that Lance blames him. He's reminded a little of one of his young cousins in that regard, who certainly knew the correct form and procedure, but refused to swim out of fear anyway.

Lance is sure they'll work their way to it though, because Keith doesn't seem like the type to only go halfway on something. No, Keith definitely gives it his all.

But in the meanwhile, Lance eventually calls it a day. When they make their way back to shore and trek up the slope of sand, they find both Pidge and Shiro napping, curled in the edge off the blanket, underneath a section of shade.

Hunk looks up from his spot on the floor when they arrive, and huh, Lance hadn't noticed the man even come out of the water. His eyes follow their line of sight, and he smiles widely at the image in front of him.

“Shiro insisted Pidge take a nap, ‘cause you know, she never really sleeps anyhow, and eventually Pidge complied. Except Shiro totally conked out too,” Hunk explains with a laugh. “Coran and the princess went off on some scuba adventure, I'm not sure on the details to be honest.”

“Scuba adventure?” Keith's nose wrinkled in confusion. It was a soft glowy sort of red, the telltale sign of a sunburn. Didn't seem too bad though, so Lance was sure it would only sting for a day or two.

“Look, Coran apparently went into town for a few tics, came back with some snorkels, and insisted we go see Varillan sea animals. After describing what was basically a blob with razor sharp teeth, everyone else politely declined,” Hunk explains, baring his teeth as for emphasis.

Lance plops down next to Hunk, and looks up at Keith expectantly, patting the spot next to him. He looks at Hunk next, asking, “How long ago was this?”

Keith slowly lowers himself into the spot Lance had patted, and Lance definitely does not feel smug about it. Keith doesn't seem to pay any mind to its significance, and he pays just as little mind to Lance’s personal space when he gets all up in it. Lance guesses this is some weird sort of bonding thing, like the swimming lessons and the cradling that definitely didn't happen except that it did. It's a thing now. It's _their_ thing now?

Alright.

So Lance does what any sane person would do and reaches for Hunk’s bag, pulling out the alien sunblock he knows he packed with the guy. It comes in a thick purple tube with a clasp at one end, not unlike Earth containers, and had strange squiggly writing on it that Lance wasn't able to make sense of, but a native from the planet he'd gotten it off assured him it was UV protection.

Which, seemed to be doing a fantastic job of warding off the sun's rays. He hasn't sunburned at all. Not like he gets particularly red after some time in the sun―thank you Latino heritage, you beautiful, beautiful thing―but he likes to take care of his skin.

Wordlessly, he hands the tube to Keith and listens as Hunk tells him about Coran and the princess going off on their scuba adventure and promising to return before the hour was up. Keith takes it, holding it precariously in his hands as if it were an explosive.

“What's this?” Keith asks.

Lance blinks, looking away from Hunk. “Sunblock,” he explains. “You're getting red, and believe me, I know from experience how painful those can get. You're wearing a shirt so you won't have to worry about your back, but dude, your face is exposed pretty much all the time.”

“Oh. Uh. Thanks.” For some reason, Keith sounds surprised. Which, hey! Lance is very thoughtful and considerate, he should not be getting an _oh_ when he does something nice.

Hunk, the bastard, seems to have a similar train of thought as Lance, but at some point, it details and goes off in another direction because Hunk grins and says, “That's awful thoughtful of you, Lance. Looking out for Keith like that.”

“Hunk, now I know you and me don't really worry about looking like tomatoes,” Lance starts, leaning back and bracing himself against his arms. “But a young pale person such as Keith here has to watch himself before he ends up looking as red as the lion he pilots.”

Hunk snorts, and Lance is sure he is the peak of humor in the entire universe.

Lance hears the distinct sound of the clasp being opened, and feels pleased. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Keith squeezing some of the sunblock into the palm of his hand.

“It's purple,” Keith says, rubbing the slick lotion in between his fingers. “And it smells weird. What's this even made of?”

“Yeah, it's fine, don't question it. Just put it on,” Lance says, dipping his fingers into the lotion and smearing it on Keith's nose. “See, perfectly fine.”

Keith scowls, but he silently starts to rub the sunblock into his cheeks and nose, so Lance chalks it up to another win. He's three to zero against Keith today, miraculously enough as it is. They were able to land on the planet at his request, he gave Keith a swimming lesson, and now he's successfully gotten Keith to partake in a skin care routine for once.

It's unfair that Keith has such nice looking skin without putting any work into it. Lance has his own theories about that.

(Alien. He's definitely an alien.)

After they sit for a while, waiting for Allura and Coran and enjoying the nice salty breeze, when Lance notices the waves in the distance. He isn't particularly sure how the tide works on this planet―that's the downside of travelling the universe, no telling if Earth science even applies anymore―but whereas earlier they seemed to be on the tamer side, they were ripe for the picking now. The waves were big enough for sure, but crashed back into the water before they reached the shore, and Lance can feel excitement expanding in his chest.

In the distance he sees what looks like someone cutting through the waves in graceful movements. Is that… Lance squints against the sun and―

Yes. It is. It's a _surfboard_!

He shoots up on his feet, and the sudden movement seems to have both Keith and Hunk frazzled.

Hunk is the first to speak up. “You okay, dude?”

Lance is immediately on his hands and knees, slotting next to Hunk and tossing an arm around his shoulder. Using his free hand, he points off into the distant waves frantically. “I totally just saw some dude on a surfboard right now, and I need to get my hands on one, like, yesterday.”

“You can surf?” Keith asks sudden, and Lance turns to look at him with a huge smile because what a silly question. Of course he can surf! Keith seems to find some sort of answer in Lance’s smile, because he blinks and stares down at his knees. His cheeks are shiny with sunblock.

Hunk is the one to answer. “Lance has been surfing and swimming for as long as I’ve known him!”

“How long have you known him?” Keith picks at a loose thread on his shorts.

Hunk’s smile in unabashed, and he knocks elbows together with Lance. “For as long as I can remember.”

Lance snorts, and decides to clear the confused look on Keith’s face. “We were six when we met. I've had the pleasure of surfing since I was four,” he explains happily. “Used to go out with my siblings and cousins all the time. Took them a while before I convinced them to actually let me ride with them.”

He shoots up on his feet after that, eyes so bright they practically burn. “We should go into town. I really want to get my hands on a surfboard.”

Stars expand under his skin at the idea. The world is wide. Wider than he'd ever believed, or could even imagine. It made him want to collapse in on himself, some days. This was not one of those days, it seemed.

(It had, perhaps, started as such. But sand under his feet and waves lapping against his skin and the slick feeling of a hand holding his certainly helped change that.)

Right now, it almost felt like he was home.

Hunk is the second to follow him up, standing on his own two feet. “Shouldn't we wait for Coran and the princess? Or at least wake up Shiro and Pidge?”

“You want to risk losing an arm by trying to wake up Pidge, you go for it,” Lance says, eyes flickering towards a familiar object before reaching down to pluck his t-shirt off the ground. Huh, so Keith did actually have the decency to bring his things down with him. “I'm not going to even try, man.”

“What about Shiro?”

Keith makes the decision for the both of them, knocking his foot against their leader’s shin hard enough to rouse him from his slumber. Lance and Hunk glance over in time to see Shiro flinch and hit his head against Pidge’s shoulder. They all snort when Pidge let's out a hiss and waves her arm in a jerking motion before turning her back to Shiro.

Shiro blinks his eyes open, hair plastered against his forehead and temple. There's sand in his hair. Pushing himself up to a sitting position, he squints with tired eyes at the other paladins.

“What is it?” Shiro asks, voice hoarse and sleepy. “Something wrong?”

“Nah, we just want to go into town,” Lance responds with a wide smile.

Shiro easily concedes under the term that they wait for Coran and Allura to return from their excursion. Lance pouts, but silently listens and plops down back into the sand. He's splayed out, stomach down, on the edge of the blanket. Hunk oversteps him to sit in Allura’s empty seat while they wait.

Lance thinks there's something nice about this. It reminds him of lazy days with his family before he'd gone off and joined the Garrison. He'd absent mindedly played with the sand from under any shade he could find. His mother read a book from under her own shady pleasure that came from a floppy hat atop her head. His sisters, Anna and Maria, hogged the umbrella to squint at their phones and talk amongst themselves. His younger siblings, Linda and Daniel, dug holes in the sand with their small chubby fingers, grains flying in any conceivable direction. His father's snoring was everyone's constant companion, as was the norm. Somewhere off in the distance his older brothers, Adrian and Marcos, were enraptured in a swimming race with a few of their cousins.

At least, that's how it would have been, but now he's on an alien beach, taking a break from saving the world with people he cares about.

Not much different if you ignore specifics.

Lance thinks that, perhaps, this could very well be just another lazy day on the beach with his family. Not his biological family, but his family nonetheless.

It makes his head feel light and stars burst from behind his eyes.

It takes a bit of patience on Lance’s part, but true to Hunk’s word, they eventually see Allura and Coran make their way through the beach. There's seaweed in Coran’s hair, Lance notes when they finally arrive. Shiro is there to stand on his feet and offer to explain the situation to the two Alteans, and Lance is pleasantly surprised when Allura happily agrees to the idea.

“We still have quite a few hours of daylight,” Allura says. “We could go into town before the shops close. Varilla has very lovely souvenirs, perhaps you may all find something that suits your nature.”

Everyone seems to be in agreement, and they decide to head out.

Shiro wakes up Pidge. Pidge adamantly claims she hadn't meant to clock him in the face. They're all at an impasse.

Coran, with the help of Hunk, Keith, and Lance, makes quick work of packing up the umbrella, blankets, and chairs, leaving them at the entrance of the ship before joining Allura and Pidge, who looks a mess with her wild hair and tired, squinty eyes.

The town, as Allura and Coran have told them, is called Degging, and is a very popular Varilla hotspot. Lance looks at the buildings he'd seen earlier when they landed. They're fairly tall, a few stories each at the very least, with rounded corners and gentle slopes. Some of the buildings have balconies, and aliens of blue and green and yellow meandering about in them. They're also on the streets, walking arm in arm, selling goods at stands, riding along in a contraption that reminds Lance of a bicycle. He has one―his father's, once upon a time―back home in storage.

Hunk is immediately distracted by a slender street vendor selling some sort of meat that smells absolutely divine. Pidge is instead drawn to a small store that sells electronics and spare parts from what they claim to be all corners of the galaxy. Lance pays them no mind, keeping his eyes peeled for the prize.

Allura leads them into a large store with an awning and tables set up in the front, full of knick knacks and small ceramic statues that seem to be staple pieces. Allura is immediately drawn to one particular statue she calls “cute” despite it depicting a huge scaly creature with dozens of eyes and sharp teeth. Lance stares at her like she had just grown a second head and―oh. Allura picks up a statue of a human-like creature with two heads, examining it with bright eyes.

Keith, surprise, surprise, is drawn to a wall filled with sharp swords and daggers and a whole other multitude of weapons inside the store. Lance watches wearily as he picks up a metal blade whip off the wall, examining it nonchalantly. Lance’s eyes continue to move through the store after he decides he'd rather not have to give a witness testimony during Keith's trial, because he's definitely going to kill someone with that thing. No doubt. Eventually his gaze is drawn to Coran, who is trying on an article of clothing that reminds him of a _sarape_. He looks ridiculous. Lance adores it.

His eyes eventually fall on the final corner of the store, where over a few shelves he can see the top of what seems to be a wooden plank. Hm. Lance makes his way in between the shelves, politely avoiding a bright pink woman with three eyes.

(He's gotten pretty good about accepting physical differences with a grain of salt, if even that.

After a tiny child from a planet where having spikes going down your back is the norm had screeched about him being disgusting―

After Allura had called his ears hideous―

After a girl from a planet called Rij-Ming had accidentally caught him in a very unfortunate state of undress and had inquired over his extra appendage―

Yeah, Lance doesn't care at all about the drastic physical differences at all anymore.)

As the shelves give way to the wall mostly hidden by them, Lance finds himself faced with endless swim gear. Lining the wall from top to bottom, Lance finds different types of goggles and snorkels that fit multiple face shapes, a series of floating devices that range from semi-normal to “I don't even want to know how that works,” and, tucked into the very corner, surfboards.

Lance’s fingers run along the wooden platforms eyeing the size and make with calculating eyes. He'd never used a wooden surfboard before, opting instead for one made of synthetic material, as it had been lighter and easier to transport. His uncle used one, however, and said that it was heavier and had a different feeling of control because of that. Not necessarily harder or easier, just different.

Lance sees boards more or less similar in size to longboards and shortboards. The noses are fairly standard in shape, with a variety of steep and gentle slopes, but Lance sees a few he'd never seen back on Earth. He traces the outlines curiously.

Then he sees it. A gun, or close enough to it. His favorite type of surfboard. Lance likes it because it has the look and feel of a shortboard with the height of a longboard, with a single curved fin that's great for maneuvering through the waters. Just by eyeballing it he can see it's a little over seven feet, just a little on the smaller side of an average gun size. He plucks it from the stand and feels the smooth finish underneath his palm. It's pretty heavy, and feels sturdy in his hands, with a nice texture and color. He runs his hand along the deck, already picturing himself waxing the thing.

Lance falls in love immediately.

“See something you like?”

When he turns, Lance is face to chest with someone. His eyes continue up and find Shiro’s smiling face. Lance smiles in return, and clutches the board under his arm, nodding in response.

“Used to do a lot of boarding back home,” Lance explains happily. “Haven't gotten much of a chance, as you might be aware. For obvious reasons. My board is back home tucked away, and this one looks pretty damn close to it. I thought it wouldn't hurt to have this if we decide to have another beach day, and it could make great decor in my room while it's not in use. Place is a little barren, any way. Thought it could use a little personal Lance touch.”

Oh, he's rambling. Lance knows he tends to do that a lot with people who aren't extremely talkative. His mother used to say he loved the sound of his own voice. Really, Lance just didn't like the quiet much. It was rather unnerving when he grew up in a house full of screaming children, to suddenly be surrounded by silence and stillness and _nothing_ in deep space with only six people.

Shiro doesn't seem to mind though, he just nods his head encouragingly. Lance still feels the heat rush to his face in embarrassment, but he decides that if anyone is accepting and encouraging, it's Shiro. So, uh, bonding and what not, right?

“Reminds me of home, too,” Lance admits with a shrug of his shoulders. “Just in general, you know? Think I could maybe get it?”

“I'm sure Allura won't mind you bringing back a little piece of home,” Shiro says, placing a metal hand on Lance's shoulder.

“Shiro, can I have this?”

When they glance to the space in between the shelves to see Keith standing there, innocently holding the blade whip in his hands.

“A little less homey than a surfboard, don't you think, Keith?” Shiro asks, but the smile playing on his lips means Keith is definitely going to get that damn weapon.

Lance shoulders his way through them with a light and airy “If you'll please excuse me,” and goes off to locate surfwax. The edge of the board clips Keith's elbow on his way out―damn shelves making the space tight―but Lance absconds before Keith can blade whip him, because that definitely would happen and it definitely wouldn't be pretty.

While he's trying to make sense of the shelf full of containers with alien squiggles on them, Hunk comes in through the entrance of the store, Pidge following close behind, tinkering with a metal bracelet on her arm. Hunk is holding some sort of meat kabob in one hand while licking grease off the other, distracted for a moment. When he finally glances up and takes one look at the board tucked under his arm and smiles brightly.

“Looks just like the one back on Earth,” Hunk exclaims, coming up to Lance, reaching out to touch the unblemished finish.

“Ah! No, no, no, no. Get your greasy mitts off of my board,” Lance warns, moving the board out of reach. “You're covered in alien oil dude. I will not have you ruining this for me.”

“Dude, _c’mon_ ,” Hunk whines, but Lance turns his nose away from his best friend. Mostly so Hunk can't see the mischievous grin on his lips. “ _Lance_.”

"Come on, help me figure out which one of these containers is surfwax, because I seriously cannot make out a single word on these things.” Lance crouches down to squint at the rows of containers.

Hunk squats next to him, holds the kabob in between his teeth, and starts to try and make sense of some of the containers. The caste does wonders in translating spoken words to the paladins, but doesn't bother with the written words. Lance vaguely wonders if Pidge and Coran could maybe collaborate on it and figure it out.

Lance is thinking that it might be a bust―maybe aliens just don't use wax―when a store worker bends down next to them.

“Is there something I can help you with?” She asks, drawing Lance's attention away from the bottle in his hands. He glances up at her, and finds that she's extremely tall and pretty, with thin yellow eyes and purple skin. Lance might've assumed she was a Galra, if not for her humanoid ears and the intricate yellow markings that curl from her temple down to the side of her face, looping under her jaw. And the lack of all around fur.

Lance blinks, and his cheeks go red. “Oh, um, yes actually. Do you happen to carry any wax for boards?” Lance asks, jutting his head toward the board tucked under his arm. “I, uh, I'm not exactly _from_ here so I can't read the product names.”

He just admitted he can't read to a pretty girl. Great.

She doesn't seem bothered by it however. If anything, she seems curious. “Varillan is a fairly popular language throughout the universe, it's very strange to meet a person who doesn't know of the language, especially if they visit the planet itself. But I would be happy to help you!”

Lance nods wordlessly, pursing his lips.

The store worker reaches over and plucks a black pot off one of the shelves and places it in his hands. “Board wax,” she tells him with a curly smile. “This is made for the tepid waters we get here.”

“Thanks,” Lance grins up at her and then turns to call out to Hunk, “Hunk, I got it!”

Hunk looks up from the bottle he was trying to read, and when he sees the pretty alien girl, Hunk squints in suspicion. Which Lance takes offense to, because he's been nothing but professional with this girl, not an ounce of flirting anywhere in this general vicinity, thank you very much.

(She's very beautiful, very sweet, but Lance doesn't feel up for flirting with another alien for a ton of reasons.

He doesn't want to offend her by doing something inappropriate by accident―

He doesn't want to accidentally offend her by not being able to reciprocate any feelings she might confess to him―

He doesn't want to think about how his intergalactic dalliances have been on the decline for a reason Lance isn't ready to admit―)

“I'm glad I could be of assistance,” the store worker says and stands to her full height, moving on towards the other end of the store.

Lance watches her go silently, and definitely does not think about why he didn't want to flirt with her. However, Hunk, completely ignorant to the sudden stream of confusion in Lance, scoots next to him and immediately starts wiggling his brows. Being the one who has known Lance the longest out of the rest of the paladins, Hunk is used to all of his best friend’s antics.

In response to the suggestive gesture, Lance blushes red, and shoots up to his feet in an instant. He mumbles something about finding Allura and Coran, and then he's turning on his heels and walking off in the other direction. Familiar laughter follows him, accosting his ears. Lance hunches his shoulders up to his ears and stalks off to do what he'd said he would.

Each respective paladin eventually makes their way over to Allura, holding something that had caught their attention during the trip. Lance undoubtedly has the largest item, Keith has the deadliest, and Shiro has the most practical, yet the most hideous. Guess ugly sandals are universal. Allura happily purchases their goods with coins that Lance is pretty sure are made of pure gold.

When they head out of town and back.down towards the beach, they all decide to sit on the bare sand. The Varillan sun has given way and the air is now cooler and more manageable. Coran says that this planet has an amazing sunset, and while Lance has no doubt that it's true―after all, everything on this planet had been downright gorgeous―he has bigger fish to fry.

Or, more correctly, he's got bigger waves to surf.

Lance waxes the board and then he shoots off towards the water; reality and anxiety and the weight of the world are washed away by the waves.

He does what he was born to do.

* * *

 Lance can surf. Which was already something Keith had known, but knowing something and actually getting to see it are two completely different things. And Lance, he can surf. Keith doesn't know the nuances of surfing as a sport, but Lance cuts through the water in a way Keith can only describe as smooth and practiced and calculating.

Lance can surf, and Keith is in silent awe of it.

After they'd gone into town and into the store, Lance had appeared with a long surfboard tucked under an arm, and that had been that. After Keith saw him pick it out, it stayed by his side for the rest of the day. From when they'd paid up until he was back at the beach, using a cloth to rub the surface of the board with a wax he'd gotten from the store.

Keith watched him meticulously rub the thing down, and then he tucked it underneath his arm and rocketed towards the waters in a flash. With a small curiosity, Keith watched him wade out into deeper water, resting his belly on the deck of the board. Waves lapped at him, making him bob in the water as he moved forward. A wave rose. Lance had caught the ride. He stood on his feet and then suddenly he was moving through the wave so smoothly that Keith was reminded of a snake twisting and turn on as it traveled through the desert.

He tries to keep his staring discreet. A futile effort seeing as only minutes after Lance starts moving through the water, Hunk points him out and suddenly everyone is squinting out at the distance to see Lance. Keith keeps to himself, watching mostly out of the corner of his eye. Lance catches them staring, and waves an arm frantically, hand cupping around his mouth to yell something that gets lost among the roaring sound of the waves.

He starts to catch another wave, and when Keith sees him move to stand, he loses his balance and goes crashing into the water, arms and legs flailing wildly as he splashes. He can hear Pidge snickering from her spot next to him, and when the blue paladin’s head pops up over the water, the rest of them join in on the rowdy laughter. From his vantage point, Keith can't make out Lance's reaction to wiping out, but he's sure that the man is probably considering drowning himself in embarrassment.

Despite the hiccup however, Lance climbs right back on that board and keeps going. Keith turns back to the conversation, but still watches Lance ride wave after wave in his peripheral, going like clockwork until eventually everyone else goes back to their own business. But Lance keeps going like it's for himself, not for others. Lance lives to please, to put on a show, to do this and that for the sake of someone else's laugh and smile.

Not this. This is something purely for his sake, anyone else be damned.

Keith is so wrapped up in watching Lance ride through the waves that he doesn't notice Hunk taking the seat next to him. The sun is well past setting, natural light starting to fade, but Lance is still out there, not a care in the world.

“He's really good, right?”

Keith blink, eyes turning up towards Hunk, feeling a little mortified about being caught. But Hunk hasn't ever seemed like the type to poke fun, and when Keith looks at him, Hunk is just staring off into the distance at Lance with a small smile on his face.

“Uh , yeah, I'm actually kind of surprised,” Keith admits, shoulders hunching a little. “I thought he was just over exaggerating.”

“Lance does tend to do that,” Hunk says with a snort. “But he is actually really good at it, which isn't surprising since he's been doing it for so long. But he must've really missed it, he's been at it for _hours_.”

Keith watches the yellow paladin. It's kind of amazing how Hunk just _gets_ people the way he does. He looks past Lance's unusually obnoxious attitude and forged a deep relationship with him, he's not deterred by Pidge being rude and her tendency to deflect, and he takes Keith's terse attitude with a grain of salt.

Keith actually finds himself appreciating being stuck as a defender of the universe with Hunk. With all of them, really. They all bring something unique and fresh to the team, something that makes Keith's chest not feel as tight.

“Oh, Lance is coming out,” Hunk says, getting up to his feet and running over to his friend.

Keith watches them meet up at the shore, and Hunk tosses an arm around Lance's bare shoulder. Lance hoists the surfboard under his arm and they make their way back to the group, talking and laughing amongst themselves.

When they arrive, Lance sprawls out on the ground beside Shiro and curling into himself, sand sticking to his wet skin. Pidge is making the most intricate sand castle ever, batting Hunk’s hand away immediately when he tries to touch it. Allura is burying Coran in the sand, trying her best to form it into the shape of an old Altean animal with long thin limbs.

And Keith feels like he's finally found something that feels like home.

Even later, when they pile back into the ship and are moving through the vastness of space, his room feels less lonely than usual.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually looked up surfing terminology for this. I had screenshots on my phone for weeks.


End file.
